Ancient Egyptians may have traveled as far as the fabled Saharan land of Yam

London, Dec 28 (ANI): Explorers have found a relic consisting of hieroglyphic writings from Pharaonic times in the Sahara desert, which suggest that ancient Egyptians might have traveled as far as 650 kilometers in the waterless desert.

Mark Borda and Mahmoud Marai, the explorers, found the relic that comprised of engravings on a large rock when they were surveying a field of boulders on the flanks of a hill deep in the Libyan Desert some 700 km west of the Nile Valley.

According to a report in the Independent online, the discovery has far reaching implications for Egyptology.

The consensus among Egyptologists is that the Egyptians did not penetrate this desert any further than the area around Djedefres Water Mountain. This is a sandstone hill about 80 kilometres south west of the Dakhla Oasis that contains hieroglyphic inscriptions.

Its discovery in 2003 by the German explorer Carlo Bergmann caused a sensation as it extended the activities of the Pharaonic administrations an unprecedented 80 kilometres further out into the unknown and waterless Western Desert, said Borda. The find we just made is some 650 kilometres further on. Egyptologists will be dumbstruck by this news, he added.

Within few days of the discovery, the scripts began yielding astonishing revelations.

According to Borda, though there have been references in the Egyptian history about far off lands that the pharaohs traded with, none of these have ever been positively located.

It turns out that the script we found states the name of the region where it was carved, which is none other than the fabled land of Yam, one of the most famous and mysterious nations that the Egyptians had traded within Old Kingdom times; a source of precious tropical woods and ivory, Borda told the Independent Online.

Its location has been debated by Egyptologists for over 150 years, but it was never imagined it could be 700 kilometres west of the Nile in the middle of the Sahara desert, he added.

Next, a trip is being planned in February to show the site to Egyptologists and journalists. (ANI)